Particle therapy is becoming widely adopted for cancer treatment. Particle therapy (also referred to herein as hadron therapy) is a form of external beam radiotherapy using beams of energetic protons, neutrons or positive ions. Other types of radiation therapy (such as those which use electrons and gamma rays) can control and manage many cancers, but may damage healthy tissue during the therapy process. Particle therapy, in contrast, can be precisely targeted onto the cancerous tumor. The particles may produce a maximum dosage within an extremely small area at a controlled depth in the tissue. The particles, thus, may direct a powerful dose of radiation directly to the tumor, while avoiding unwanted radiation exposure and reducing damage to healthy tissue and vital organs. The precision of particle therapy may be useful for treating tumors in inoperable locations (e.g., the brain, or other locations within the head), near other sensitive tissue (e.g., the spine) and where radiation to normal tissues should be avoided (e.g., for pediatric oncology treatments).
One of the challenges in particle therapy treatments is to improve the quality assurance of the radiation process to ensure that only the tumor is radiated during the treatment.